Him, Her, and Me :A Year at Bastion College
by Lain of the Weird
Summary: So, yes. Still no idea where this is going. A major crossover between almost all the Final Fantasies and Kingdom Hearts. Who knows where this is going. Certainly not me
1. A Long Time on an Old Bus

_A/N: Yes, I'm currently stuck on two of my three stories, and have been meaning to write this for ever – at least a week now. Pairings are a mystery, so is everything else. I'm just scratching the writing itch. Yes, there is an original character. Does she have a MS complex? I hope not. We'll see though. All I'm writing off is a Character web, so who the hell knows where this is going? Rating is subject to change without notice, as is the title. Mainly because at this point, I don't have one. Coming up with a school name was hard enough. And yes, this is a school story. I sure as hell didn't come up with the idea, though I hope this will amuse you to a certain extent, and if it doesn't, I'm still amused._

_Disclaimer: I don't own anyone except Juri. Which is nice, though I'd trade possession of her in a second if someone would offer me Squall instead. What? You don't have him? Goddamn. _

The bus had obviously seen a lot, and was overdue for a retirement. Either that or a mercy kill, Yuffie Kisaragi wasn't entirely sure which would be better. She preferred the later, truth be told, but perhaps she was just an eensy bit biased against the bastardized excuse for a heap of junk metal. After all, she had been on the god damned piece of shit for over three days, along with companions, all either too damned quiet or too damned loud, and coming from a perpetually over caffeinated sixteen year old, that was saying a lot. She had run out of Advil two days ago, and her last set of batteries had died this morning. This leaves her staring out the window and listening to two teenage boys roughly her own age gabble non stop. Was it irritating? Yes. Was she going to throttle someone if they didn't get there soon? Absolutely.

The bus trip hadn't even supposed to have been three days, the company had practically sworn a blood oath that the passengers would get to the school safe and sound within a day and a half. _This sucks._ She curls up as best she can on the hard leather seats, cradling her head in her hands, stomach growling. She had also run out of food this morning. "Euhh." She pats her stomach, trying to console the poor thing. Granola bars and graham crackers did not a meal make. No arguments there, old pal.

She couldn't remember falling asleep, cheek mushed against dirty window, but she wakes up, so she must have fallen asleep at some point or another. The sun is setting, and the other occupants of the bus are finishing up their food. She looks around, trying not to stare. The two boys, obviously friends, are stuffing their faces with burgers and some sort of drink in a white paper cup, swiping each other's fries, sticking ice cubes down shirts and pants, and generally trying to amuse themselves. The girl sitting across from her is still the way she had been for the past three days, headphones on, fingers flying wildly over a small computer balanced on her knees, eyebrows curling downward with concentration. And the fourth and final member of the bus, discluding the bus driver, was sitting at a diagonal from her, eating a stick of sad looking celery and drinking Gatorade. As she watches he stands, balancing easily on the tremulous automobile, and carries his now empty bottle and plastic baggie to the back of the bus.

A moment later the girl sitting across from her looks up from whatever she's been doing, shuts her computer with a click, and lets the headphones slide down around her neck. She looks down beside her feet, and slips the computer into a bag, before pulling out a slightly squished apple and bagel. Yuffie can't help herself anymore, she lets out a little whimper, somehow forcing all the tension and fear, anger and hunger she had been feeling for the past three days into a two second sound. The girl snaps her head up, meeting Yuffie's Hershey colored eyes with pitch black ones. Yuffie flushes, and offers a tentative, "hi?"

The girl doesn't smile, but a dash of sympathy tinged with amusement flickers in her gaze, and she rips the bagel in half, handing over the larger half to Yuffie. "You look like you're about to die." She begins munching on the apple, saving the other half of her bagel for a later time.

Yuffie turns a gratifying tomato color and crams about half the bagel down her throat. It wasn't her favorite, not by any means. She prefers berry blend cream cheese on cinnamon bagels to garlic cream cheese on a tomato bagel. But hell, it was food, and at this point she would have eaten a chocobo, providing it came smeared in honey mustard. Movement flickers in her peripheral vision and she turns, looking up as the boy returns from the back of the bus and sits down. _Wow._ It just doesn't seem fair to her, a boy being so pretty. Hell, he was easily more feminine that herself, his hair was even longer, and probably a lot softer and healthier to boot. _Not fair._ Her eye twitches, and she looks up into the dark eyes of the God sent girl who had given her the bagel. "Uh… thanks."

The girl shrugs, "it was a bagel. A squished one at that." She looks over Yuffie's shoulder, eyes widening.

Yuffie turns, getting her first good look at the school that she would be spending the next several years at. "Wow." She knows her eyes are the size of dinner plates, but seeing a black and white picture in a book and the whole kitten caboodle are two entirely different things. "It's big…"

The girl nods, and watches the silhouette get ever closer as the bus creaks up the winding road, grabbing her bag and cuddling it on her lap as though it was a kitten. "Yeah."

Apparently one of the boys, the younger one in all likelihood had a similar reaction as Yuffie, because, as the two girls stare out the window at the oncoming castle, an amused voice cuts through the silence, "Yeah, you like things big, don'tcha, Sora?"

There was a limited number of times where she could recall being bored. Limited being she could counts them all on one hand. She was almost always plugged into something, be it her computer, game boy, headphones, or even a miniature radio. And if separated from her precious electronics, she could always just watch people, and wonder what their price per square inch was.(1) But she had already done that for all of her compatriots, and they had been sitting around in the vestibule of their new head's office for almost a half hour now, and almost all of them seemed to be losing it.

Her eyes track over to the two boys, and her eyebrows wrinkle. They were… weird, to say the least. The smaller and probably younger brunet didn't bother her as much, outside the fact that he dressed like a clown – big yellow shoes and all. It was the silver haired boy who drove her distracted. He was so… shiny. And that bothers her. People shouldn't be shiny. That was something that computer chips should have the sole honor of being.

She looks around and blinks at the girl who she had shared her bagel with on the bus. Though the term bus seemed to imply something that was capable of moving at over thirty miles an hour. The girl, the only one she had met who did not tower over her, was shivering in her tank top and shorts. She feels a flash of sympathy – she was wearing a long sleeved shirt beneath her **A**sians **O**n **L**inux tee shirt, and long pants, and was thoroughly chilled.

She begins toying with her almost waist length black bangs, studying the final character of this charade. She had saved studying him again for last, though he had been on the trip with her the longest. She had been on the damned contraption for seven days, he had gotten on during the sixth. They had picked Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber up on the fifth, and the other girl up on the third. And yet she could never get tired of looking at him. She watches his legs enviously, well, his pants. Hey, they were smashing pants, all black leather and buckles and clunky belts. Or maybe it was the way the leather clings to his legs. _Damn._ She shakes her head, and looks away as a tall man strides in.

She knows instinctively that this _has_ to be Head Ansem Hallow. Who else in the school would be topping seven feet with ease, have bright orange eyes, and filmy white hair? She shudders, and waits for him to say something.

The Head surveys his pupils, three new, two old and shakes his head. _The damned buses take longer every year._ Maybe it was time to try and find a better way to transport students unwilling to fly to the school. His school, Bassion College for Young Men and Women. Personally, he hated the name, and therefore while in his hearing, the school was simply called Bassion College, or BC if someone was feeling insubordinately lazy. He shakes his head, and puts on his disturbing/ disarming smile, "Welcome to some of you, and welcome back to the rest." He takes a deep breath and continues, "My name is Ansem Hallow, head of the school. Synchratic, Kisaragi, you're rooming with Miss Gainsborough and Miss Kugyo. Leonheart, Matsu, and Tamaki, you'll be rooming with Mister Strife." He sits down in a chair across from the teens. "Gainsborough and Strife are prefects. They can answer any questions you may have. If they can't, ask the instructors. Classes start tomorrow at nine sharp. That will be all." He turns, and pauses, calling over his shoulder, "your prefects will be going over this with you as well, but this is my only warning: leave the heartless alone." He smirks and disappears.

Juri blinks, her typical response to any sort of surprise. There's an air of restlessness in the room now. _Where are the effing prefects?_ Fortunately for her sanity, and the two who had answered to Matsu and Tamaki's health, a girl and a boy appear almost out of no where. She's inclined to blink now, more from need than anything else. The girl was… pink. Very pink. Pink from her nicely polished lips to the straight bow in her hair, to her dress, and her leathery looking cropped jacket.

The girl smiles, revealing a set of very strait white teeth. On anyone else, Juri would have expected to find expensive home teeth bleaching kits under the sink, but there was something soothing about the smile. "Hi!" She chirps, beaming around. With the head gone, and this song bird in his place, the oppressive cold lifts a little.

Juri shakes her head. Anyone who can warm up a room by smiling equals trouble. The girl beams around, "My name is Aerith Gainsborough… Squall!" She crosses the room in a single bound, tackling the boy in leather pants. "My goodness Squall! It's lovely to see you again!" She squeezes her arms around him again and then backs off. "You two are Yuffie and Juri, right?"

The girl in a tank top and shorts bounces forward with an altogether too perky salute. "Yes!" Juri just nods, hefting her bag onto her shoulder as a tall blond boy steps out from behind Aerith. This is surprising, seeing as to how Aerith barely comes up to the boy's shoulder, and his spikes of blond hair stick up even higher.

"And I'm Strife." He growls, giving everyone an impressive glare.

"Will you knock it off, Cloud?" The boy, Squall asks dryly, speaking for the first time since he had boarded the bus.

"It's ceremony, Squall, it's all about the ceremony." Cloud grins, and flicks Squall the bird. "Alright midget children. Let's go. Bright and early tomorrow. Beat it."

The next hour involves mainly Aerith leading a dumbfounded Yuffie around, showing her the various classes. Juri was quite inclined to agree with the teenager not wearing pink. _This place gives a new meaning to the word fucking huge_. Between a floor of class rooms, a floor of dorms, a floor of gyms, pools, and several floors given solely to the staff and head master, and a fricking lake, this place could easily swallow up her home town, and still have room left for a city or two.

Their last stop is the cafeteria, well, the major one, according to Aerith. "You see, there's a café of sorts on every level. Saves you from having to walk down five flights of stairs to get a snack. But this is where everyone has dinner, and it stays open until midnight. Probably later, depending on the mood of the staff." She smiles at Yuffie, bouncing around and waving her hand in the air. "Yes?"

The girl grins, "can we have ice cream, Aerith? Pleeeease?"

Aerith smiles good naturedly. "Sure."

Yuffie whoops and sprints over to the large freezer in one corner, slapping a rather impressive sundae together. Juri shakes her head and helps herself to a cup of fresh fruit from one of the buffet tables. She just isn't a sugary sort of person. And there's fresh pineapple. The pull of pineapple is far greater than the pull of ice cream.

Aerith leads them out of the cafeteria, now carrying a small cup of vanilla soft serve. "Our rooms are on the next floor up." She leads them up the winding staircase, to a row of doors. "Home sweet home." She intones with a giggle, pulling out a key and opening the door, to reveal a dark room. "Kairi's probably asleep."

Juri can't really see anything, so she thumps into the first bed she can find and rolls over, asleep.

_(1) This is a game a couple of my mathematically inclined friends made up. Basically, it consists of estimating how much money is spent on the person, divided by their inches squared. Geeky? Absolutely. Amusing? Hell yes._


	2. Early Morning Weapons Training

_A/n: Well, it is official: My computer hates me. Completely. Like – the way Vincent hates Yuffie braiding his hair. And – being deprived of both VL and Deplora's stuff to read – I am back to writing. Though if this suckiness continues I will go play FF8 with the sole intention of looking at Squall's ass as much as is humanly possible. _

_Disclaimer: I wish that I owned Squall – of at least had a time share of him. But I'm not that fortunate. All I own is Juri, and anyone else you don't recognize. _

There was an alarm going off somewhere. A steady Bbbtzz, bbbtzz, bbbtzz, threatening to drive her absolutely bat shit. Something pounds on the wall, and a slurred masculine voice growls through the plaster, "if someone doesn't turn that God damned contraption off, I am going to come over there and cram it up your collective asses!"

Yuffie sits bolt upright, looking around for either the owner of the voice, or the machine making the bbtzzing noise. She blinks, and looks around, disoriented. This certainly wasn't the bus that she had been on for who the hell knew how long, the springy bed and four walls could tell her that much. She kneads her eyes with her fists until her vision clears, and she can observe a rather groggy Aerith, hair falling out of last night's braid sit up and look around. "Morning, Aerith!"

Aerith looks up, "oh. G'morning, Yuffie. Just a sec." She rolls out of bed and crosses the room to a pile of laundry, clawing through it until she unearths a small black box, which she flicks a switch on and the noises stop. "Sorry about that, Kairi uses her alarm to wake everyone else up so she won't sleep through class."

A head and arms appear from under a blanket across the room. "'Time is it?"

Aerith blinks at a drowsy Juri, who was now residing on the floor. "Uh, seven oh seven. Time to get up!"

The dark haired teenager sits up slowly, pushing her long bangs out of her black eyes. There's a vaguely homicidal glint to them. "Classes start at nine. That is in one hour and fifty three minutes."

Aerith smiles, albeit slightly confused. "Yeah. But we need breakfast first, and there's only one person in the bathroom at a time." She smiles at Yuffie. "Why don't you go first today, seeing that I need to wake my friend up."

Yuffie shrugs, and grabs the first items of clothing she lays hands on, before darting to the shower. No doubt about it – this bathroom was made for midgets. She shakes her head and steps into pleasantly warm water, letting it spray down her shoulders and stomach. Entirely soaked, she soaps up, rinses, and steps out. A quick rub with her towel, pulling clothes on, and a run of her fingers through her dark hair and she's ready to face the morning.

She opens the door to be met by a Juri, no longer looking quite like a Wyvern. "Go help her." The unshowered girl jerks her head towards Aerith, trying to coax something bunched up ina ball at the foot of the bed out. She pushes past, leaving Yuffie running her fingers through still drying hair, trying and failing to not burst out laughing.

Aerith looks up, bushing her ruddy hair out of jewel like eyes. "Morning Yuffie. It's nice to see that someone here can wake up without biting my head off." She smiles and pokes the lump twice, eliciting a rustling from the person underneath. "Come on Kairi. Don't you want to see Sora Matsu?"

The lump erupts, sending blankets cascading everywhere, and wide purple eyes look around beneath a cloud of red hair. "Sora? Sora? Where?"

Aerith grins good naturedly. "Probably in the café by now." She steps to the side as the girl scrambles out of her nest, grabbing a few clothes and bowling over a freshly washed Juri in her haste.

Yuffie snickers, then offers her hand to the irate teen. "So, that's Kairi?"

Aerith smiles, and helps Yuffie pull the unresisting Juri to her feet. "Yeah. Let's go the café, Kairi will probably catch up with us in a couple minutes." She leads the two junior girls out of the room and down the hall to a small café crammed into a corner.

Yuffie follows Aerith eagerly to the counter, "French toast please!" She announces, copying Aerith, though Aerith had ordered a bowl of cereal instead. The trio makes their way down the line to where plates with their requests on it pop out, and find a table in a corner.

"Juri, aren't you going to eat something?" Aerith asks, sounding vaguely concerned. "You'll need fuel for today."

Yuffie shovels her French toast in her mouth, closing her eyes to savor the sweet toasty goodness. A peach pit thuds against her nose and she looks up, almost dropping a bite of French toast in her lap. She glares at an innocent looking teenager, eating the second half of her nectarine. "Juuuriii! What was that for?"

She shrugs, licking the last of the fruit juice off her fingers. "You'll give yourself diabetes if you keep eating like that. Then you'll go into shock or something equally unpleasant." A smile twitches at the corner of her mouth at this.

Yuffie finishes her breakfast in record time, and shrugs at Juri. "I'm not dead yet." She pulls a rather grotesque face and follows Aerith the a steel counter, sliding her dishes across to a woman in white mage robes.

Aerith walks quickly, and Yuffie, while able to keep up, certainly doesn't appreciate being made to jog everywhere on a full stomach. She pauses at the top of another flight of stairs, arms crossed over her stomach. "Ow."

Aerith looks over at the younger girl, concern shining in her big green eyes. "I'm sorry, Yuffie. I should have told you that it's a long walk to get anywhere here." She resumes walking, this time at a slower pace. A bell rings as they approach the destination that Aerith holds in mind. She smiles, good naturedly, albeit a little patronizingly as her charges jump at the sound. "The bells take some getting used to." She pulls a rather plain wooden door open, "welcome to morning weapons."

The bell clangs twice, and Aerith drags Yuffie and Juri into a set of empty folding chairs arranged in a semicircle in the middle of a gym sized room. Yuffie looks around, trying to push her bangs out of her eyes. There are about ten or so other students in the room, some obviously prefects, others just as obviously first years. People are chattering and laughing amongst themselves, and then there's a sudden hush.

Three figures walk to the front of the room, two tall, tall men, surrounding a slighter woman. The woman steps forward and all eyes snap onto her. "Good morning, class." Her voice is soft, sweet, and deadly. "My name is General Beatrix. These are my compatriots, Sir Auron and Mister Barret." She continues speaking in her steel and honey voice, but Yuffie's already off in la-la land. _So. Weapons. How hard can this be?_ She's already proficient with her shurikens, thanks to excessive amounts of training, courtesy of her father.

"ALRIGHT, LADIES!" A black mountain of a man steps up, waving the machine gun attached to his arm around in the air. He seems, at least to Yuffie, to be talking to the two rowdy boys that had been on her bus, Matsu and Tamaki, though Aerith had called one Sora. The class jumps as a whole and stares at him he grins, revealing too many too white teeth. "So here's the drill, girls: We're doing summoning weapons today." A groan goes up from the upper classmen. "Shut the hell up. You second years'll be teaching the new children how to summon their weapons." He pulls a list out from under his vest. "Strife, you're working with Sora Matsu. Armarant, you're with Yuffie Kisaragi. Gainsborough – you're still working with Miss Kugyo. Keep up the good work." He continues in that vein of talk, and Yuffie looks around, trying to figure out who Armarant could be.

A sudden surge of movement signals the end of Barret's speech, and Yuffie looks around, trying to decide through a process of elimination, who this mystery student could be. The chairs are all empty, though, but when she stands to go on a quest for one of her teachers, a hulking boy, seven feet if he was an inch walks over to her. She looks up into a mass of red dreadlocks, completely covering his eyes.

"You're Kisaragi?" His voice is gruff, almost a growl.

"Yuffie, actually. Yuffie Kisaragi." She smiles up at the carved blue green features.

"Whatever."

Yuffie follows her partner over to a corner, wondering why on earth she had to be landed with a partner sporting the personality and charisma of a rock.

Juri is not altogether thrilled when Mister Barret does not bother calling her name. She walks up, pulling long striped red and white sleeves down over her hands. "'Scuse me, sir?" The big man turns, and looks down on her, flashing white teeth at her. _Sunflasses would be nice for moments like these._

"Juri Synchratic, Squall Leonheart, and Vincent Valentine. You three'll be working together during this time." He gives the boy from the bus a very pointed look. "Now get to work!" He grabs Squall's shoulder as the small girl trails after the tall red caped figure.

She follows the boy, man rather, across the gym, trying to weave around the partners, all either sparing, or trying to summon a weapon. Blah. What did you need to summon weapons for? She carried one or two out of habit – not because she ever needed to use them, but because she liked the insurance of a butterfly tucked up her sleeve.

Red clothed man, Vincent, stops suddenly in a corner of the gym, looking around furtively. He relaxes, then jumps when Juri knocks into him. He whirls around, and she feels cold metal settle around her neck.

Red eyes stop a few inches from her own black ones. "Don't _ever_ sneak up on me again." The man hisses, before releasing her and staring down at her impassively. "Summon weapons are basic." He pauses to tuck a strand of inky hair back into his headband before continuing. "Believing holds power here. By believing that I can call a weapon to my hand, it comes." There's a slender rifle in his hand now, and he smoothly locks it into place, brings it up and fires three times in sucession. Pin hole shots.

Juri blinks and wanders over to look at the target, really a red circle about an inch and a half in diameter, only two holes visible. She whistles between her teeth and jams her hands into her pockets, sauntering back over. "Cool beans."

Vincent shrugs, and gun disappears as easily as he had called it forth. "Try it."

She nods once, dark eyes focusing on a point about four inches from the tip of her nose. _Huh. So, believe_. She takes a deep breath, holding it and releasing it, trying to let all the tension just flow out of her. _Believe._ Her eyes close, but she can still feel the point she had been staring at. Something sparks inside of her. A memory of gunpowder, light, and magic. Something contracts very tightly in her chest, and there's an ice cold weight in her hand. She opens her eyes, looking to her teacher, only to find him paralyzed by something approaching from behind her shoulder. She spins on the toe of one black sneaker heavily patched with duct tape, as a man in a long leather coat brushes past her, giving her a shove. Before anyone can react, Vincent is swept up by the other man, a very blank look in blood colored eyes.

"It's good to see you again, Vincent." The voice is flat, almost emotionless, a verbal smirk. He brings his pale face closer to Vincents, lips part way open, and a burst of machine guns cuts through, causing everyone in the room, previously watching the drama unfold, to jump and stare at Barret.

"Cut that the fuck out Sephiroth." The big man growls, black eyes narrowing.

Sephiroth gives Barret a careless glance, swishing a few stray locks of silver hair over his shoulder. "As you wish, Professor." He turns his back, "bastard." He stares at Vincent, and even Juri, standing ten feet away can feel the testosterone radiating out of the taller male. He turns and walks away, making a very swishy sound as he passed.

As soon as the man had left, Vincent slumps over, wrapping his arms around his knees and staring straight ahead. For the second time in about thirty seconds, someone shoves past Juri and stops in front of Vincent. The boy from the bus, Squall. She growls something that may or may not have been unprintable, and watches, her guns melding back into her skin with a slight tingle.

Squall kneels in front of Vincent, forcing the other boy to look at him. "Vincent. Vincent! Are you alright." He gets a blink in reply. "You're going to be ok." He stands up and looks around the room. "Freya!"

A figure sporting a short red coat, top hat, and a tail walks over, butt of her spear clicking against the floor. "Squall?"

Squall nods to the boy on the floor, cutting out excess communication. Freya's spear disappears, and she pushes a lock of snow colored hair behind her shoulder and picks Vincent up easily, walking out of the gym with a practiced ease.

Squall doesn't turn to Juri immediately, and when he does, she can feel herself falling, falling, falling into those eyes. Eyes the color of the Maine Ocean at dawn. Cold, merciless, and beautiful enough to cause the viewer pain. But those eyes don't see her. They shoot right through her, past her and look at something on the far side of her skull. Scary.

"Summon your weapon." He says flatly, still focusing on something behind her, a most peculiar weapon appearing in his hands. The blade was that of a bastard sword, but had the helt of a six cylinder revolver. Peculiar to say the least.

Juri blinks. "What is that?" She asks, captivated by the oily reflections of the white lights on the blade.

"A gunblade. Summon your weapon." He growls something and shoves his bangs out of his eyes. Damn women.

Juri shakes her head, her waist long bangs sneaking past her shoulders again. She growls and holds her hands out, palms facing upward. _Now what?_ There was none of that feeling, whatever the hell it had been when the black haired boy had been teaching her. She sneaks a furtive glance at her "mentor", the brunet was busy sparring with enemies that only he could see, silver blade dancing in and out. She shakes her head again, dark brown hair tickling the back of her neck.

_Damn it girl, believe!_ She glares at her out stretched hands, fingers splayed outward. A hand, leather gloves icy against her skin forces her fingers to curl slightly, pointer fingers remaining strait. "It's stupid to summon a weapon if you'll drop it as soon as it comes."

The voice startles her out of her reverie of inward abuse, and she spins, adrenaline pumping, and her small fist spinning out and catching the older boy on the cheek. She stares at her hands, shocked. She had never been a boxing type. What she couldn't accomplish with fingernails, she accomplished with knives. What was more surprising to her was that there was a firearm in her grip. A firearm that had added a fair amount of power to her punch.

Squall stares at the short girl in front of him, not even bothering to check his cheekbone to see if she had really hit him. He had seen the fist fly, black handgun materializing in her first right before smooth knuckles thumped against his face.

_Oh… oh my Gods._ She stares at the sleek weapon clutched in her hand. It was large, but not clumsy, weighted, but not taxingly so. She doesn't even bother trying to suppress her blush reflex, heat spreading across her cheekbones.

"Practice summoning until you can call your weapon when you need it." He growls, sliding his Gunblade away with a hiss of metal on metal. He turns and walks away, acutely aware of dark eyes on his back.

A gong sounds and there's a flurry of movement, students grabbing bags and calling to their friends as they scurry onwards. Yuffie comes bounding up, good mood mostly untouched by her mentor's stoniness; Aerith following at a sedate pace.

The tiny brunette links arms with her two room mates. "Where do we go now Aerith?"

The older girl smiles, taking Yuffie's other arm. "We have fifteen minutes until the next class starts. So where ever you want, more or less."

Yuffie grins, "forward the ranks then!" And she skips off, dragging a vaguely perturbed Juri along behind her.


	3. English, Magic, and Fist Fights

A/N: Finally, something else up. No idea where I'm going with this, or what the hell I'm thinking. Just… yeah. Playing around with different ways to write. Been far too long since I've read any KH fanfics. My grammar checker hates me. Bugger.

Disclaimer: I won nothing besides a pounding headache, a couple of burned cds, and a lazy narcissic muse. You are welcome to whatever you want of my meager possessions. Luffs to Ann and anyone from the Squiffie community. Though why you would be reading this yet, I have no idea, seeing as the actually Squiffie-ness is…. A long long time in the future. If it comes at all. That was a joke. Really.

A/N2:Ignore anything too illogical that appears in here, including but not limited to: mood swings, The Scarlet Letter, change of tense, Gippal being out of character, Seifer being a bastard, ect, ect.

000

Yuffie was rather inclined to admit that weapons class, while generally boring, had been at least somewhat amusing. Her 'mentor' was quite obviously about as nice as a rock, with a matching personality. She always did attract the good ones, didn't she? But class was over, and hanging off of her room mate's arm, skipping around and generally acting her shoe size opposed to her age, a six and a half if you wanted to know, she decides that all she really needs right now is… more food. She voices this thought to Aerith who giggles, and releases a perturbed Juri from her grip. "Alright, Yuffims," she smiles cheerily at the smaller girl, overly pleased with the nickname she had chosen. "But we really should grab out stuff for the academic classes first." The brunette tweaks the fuchsia bow in her hair and trots down several flights of stairs, stopping in front of their room. She presses her finger onto a tiny blue pad stuck on the door frame, and whispers her name. Something inside the door clicks, and she opens it smoothly, revealing their room all tidied up, clothing folded neatly over the back of a chair or stowed in a box.

Yuffie raises an eyebrow as the older girl pulls out a stack of folders and books, balancing them on her hip as she gestures for her charges to do the same thing. The small ninja gives her friend a wary look before tugging out a small notebook that had been shoved in her bag, almost as a last minute think.

"It that all you brought?" On anyone else, the words would have sounded scornful, barbed. But said by Aerith, glittering green eyes fastened onto her own, there was only concern and worry. "We can get you more supplies later." She turns on the heel of her brown work boot, and strides out into the corridor, Juri pausing to grab her ratty messenger bag before following the two out into the hall, door clicking shut behind the four.

Aerith doesn't seem to be following any set path, weaving around turns and down stair cases randomly until she happens upon a small bar type of deal. These sort of bars literally just popped up here and there, and they seemed to move on their own free will, but were always stocked with some sort of fruit or muffin of juice, exactly what a hungry scholar would need in order to make it until the next meal. The locking mechanism is nearly identical to the one on their door frame, the pad being a brilliant green instead of blue, and it's the same ordeal of pressing her finger to the pad and muttering her name before the small silvery door swings open. "Lets go, shall we?" She pulls a small plastic bottle of grapefruit juice out, and stands back, letting the younger girls have a shot at the goodies inside.

Yuffie looks around, enjoying the cool puffs of air against her sweaty face. Who knew that wandering around a castle the size of Lake Michigan could be so tiring? In the corner, all alone, is a very lonely looking cheese Danish. She could probably be a very good friend to that Danish, and she pulls it out, biting into the pastry with satisfaction. Yummy. She follows a retreating Aerith, Juri taking up the rear, a can of Coke fizzling at her nerves. Aerith proceeds to amuse Yuffie and annoy the bejeezus out of the techie girl but mumbling comments about how Coca-Cola was not supposed to be consumed at ten in the morning. Juri ignores her matter of factly. It's never too early for caffeine, and she is just not a tea type of person.

They round a corner sharply, and come face to face with a yellow… something. It is hard to tell exactly what, but there was a conical body, and a small black head, with two beady eyes glittering underneath some sort of hat, which, incidentally enough, was also a cone, albeit a cone with a swirly thing on the end. A flicker of electrical energy dances along the thing's body, as it hovers around, making a slight buzzing noise, unsure as to what the four girls were, and if it would be worth the chaos of zapping one or two of them.

Yuffie lets out a shriek, more of surprise than fear, though she was plenty afraid of whatever the hell it was. Chaos ensues without further ado. Aerith chokes on her dainty sip of juice, spraying it every which way, the plastic container dropping onto the floor with a thud, sending rivulets of pink liquid every which way, and stands there, paralyzed with worry. Her lips are moving, voice coming out in a wheezy whisper, but Yuffie's dancing around, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

A blond and blue streak comes tearing along, stopping quickly on the floor with a squeal of metal treads against linoleum. The hero, Cloud Strife, sticks himself in front of the pretty upper classman, seizing her shoulders and shaking her gently. "Aerith. Shh. It's alright, sweetie. They're not going to hurt you. Shh." He pulls her into a hug, and raises an eyebrow at the two girls, Yuffie flushed almost to the point of aneurysm, and the shorter girl staring over his shoulder, awestruck. "Show's over girls. You're classroom is the last room on this floor on the left. Can't miss it." He keeps an arm around the small woman, and guides her back down the corridor, leaving the two freshmen alone.

Yuffie stares at the back of the retreating boy, mouthing the word coward to herself. Sure it wasn't true at all, using oneself as a human shield obviously did not count as an act of cowardice. But it makes her feel better, so what the hell? "Um… can we get by, please?" The yellow orbs don't blink at her, and she swears that the buzzing suddenly sounds much, much more ominous.

Juri however, has a much different approach, being completely in love with the little bit of floating electricity. "It's cute!" She announces the first thing she's said since weapons started, and takes a step forward, and Yuffie squinches her eyes shut, prepared to stick her shurikens into the yellow blob until it resembles a pin cushion if her roommate becomes a Juri-kabob. There's no crackle of electricity, and she peers between her fingers as the tiny girl approaches the floating Heartless. "Aw, you're such a cute little monster thingy."

From somewhere inside the head, a buzzing voice, like the crackle of a toaster short circuiting replies, "Heartless." A period of buzzing, or radio static. "Yellow Nocturne." Buzz, buzz, buzz. "Not monster." But the Heartless' eyes turn up in smile at the compliment, and it bobs its head and darts off.

Juri flutters her fingers in farewell before starting down the hall, a meditative look in her normally blank eyes. Yuffie bebops along to absolutely nothing, until, after a very large amount of time, she reaches the door to their next class. She gives Juri a mock bow, "ladies first!" She tries to brush off the annoyed look, and follows her roomie in.

Unlike their first classroom, this one is disappointingly normal. About thirty very uncomfortable plastic desks, arranged in disgusting symmetrical rows, a sparkling clean chalk board, and a rudimentary teacher's desk, far too neat to have ever been used for anything other than a status symbol. Almost everything in the room was disgustingly normal, something out of a Disney Channel Original Movie, with the exception of a blond couple in the middle of the room, engaged in some sort of passionate activity.

At first glance, the two seem to be trying to choke suck the other's face off, but after a couple of minutes, the two would separate, and the shrieking would begin, and judging from the ragged quality to the voices, this sort of thing had been going on at least since the last class had ended.

The blond girl is bouncing around the taller man, quite literally hopping with rage. "Yeah? You think you're all that?" Her hands are bunched into petite fists, and she looks ready to commit murder.

"Well, babe, you gotta admit that I am." The blond man smiles lazily, reaching out and tugging her close, eye uncovered by a patch twinkling with mischief.

The girl pulls away, punching him on the arm. "Don't call me that, you bastard! I'm not your babe, I'm not your sweet, or hun, or any other fucking retarded name you come up with!" She hits him again, voice gravely from the strain.

"Course you're not, baby." He grins and pulls her in close, mouth working furiously against hers.

SMACK.

"Don't _ever_ touch me again, you god damned man whore." The blond girl shakes her stinging hand out and stalks across the room, radiating a white hot fury.

The boy looks like he's about to follow her, but a crowd of kids enter as the first bell rings, arguing loudly, before taking their seats. Two short boys stop in front of the desk for a moment, and then continue on to their seats, grinning maliciously. Yuffie looks around and slides into one of the two remaining desks, making Juri sit directly in front of her, and incidentally across from the effeminate boy on the train. _Damn it._

The door opens again as two breath takingly beautiful women enter, but, unlike the weapon's class the volume doesn't change, and the women move slowly to the front of the room, long gowns swaying slightly with their motion. As a single unit, the blond and brunette stop in front of the desk, look down, and let out an ear piercing scream.

That gets the class' attention. It also, however, draws the attention of a giant security guard patrolling the hall, and a blue furred head sticks inside the glass room, amber eyes staring coolly at the teach. "Is there a problem, Miss Bell, Miss Aurora?"

The two women place dainty hands on heaving chests, trying to calm down. "Just…the..Usual..Pranks...Mr. Ka-maree." The brunette replies, fussing with the butter colored skirts on her ball dress. "Sorry to disturb you."

The blue creature nods and shuts the door, leaving a very red faced class behind. The blonde in a pink dress steps forward, eyes snapping. "A can of worms on the attendance sheet?" She hisses, far more intimidating that the Yellow Nocturne. "I will not tolerate these asinine pranks in my... our class room. I want whoever did this pathetic act to confess. Now!" The entire class remains silent, and the woman lets out a sigh of defeat, stepping back to allow her counterpart to begin the class.

The brunette steps forward, flashing a pink lipped smile at the class. "Good morning, students!" She chirps more robin like than Aerith. "My name is Miss Belle, and welcome to English! Now why don't we begin with a little introduction? Please state your name, year, and favorite book. I'll go first." She smiles a saccharine smile again. "My name is Bella Etoile, this is my second year teaching English, and my favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. Aurora?"

The blonde crosses her arms across a rather ample chest. "Boys and girls, my name is Rose Aurora, this is my first year teaching English here at the Bastion College, and my favorite book is the Little Prince." She points a rather accusatory finger at one of the blond boys sitting in the back row.

"Uh… my name is Tidus Saca, I'm a first year, and my favorite book is the Karma Sutra." He rocks back in his chair, looking immensely pleased with himself.

Yuffie doesn't really listen to any more introductions, and watches her roommate boot up her laptop and begin playing solitaire. Kind of pathetic really, she had never thought that there would be a time when Solitaire would be preferable to whatever else was going on.

A single introduction does stick out in her mind, that of the gorgeous boy from the train. "My name is Squall Leonheart, I'm a second year. I don't have a favorite book, actually. Classics are alright." He folds his mouth shuts and rests his cheek in his gloved hand, staring blankly out into nothing, eyes veiled with steel irises.

Yuffie doesn't really remember what she babbles about. Hell, she didn't really like to read. Instead, she draws a stick figure mauling another one, a Yellow Nocturne giggling in the background. Immature, her? Never. She does look up briefly when Juri mentions the Divine Comedy as her favorite book, but only because it was supposed to be the center of some obscure cult. Whatever. She has to suppress a giggle when something flicking against Squall's nose startles him into consciousness and for a moment those infuriated eyes are pinning her in place, before they move on to glare at a boy with a tail a few rows over. Peculiar.

After what seems like a week, but is really only twenty minutes, Belle claps her hands, gold sateen gloves muffling any sort of noise she may have been trying to make. "Alright boys and girls! Now that we all know each other," she inserts a disarming smile here, "let's get cracking!"

Aurora tries not to roll her eyes at her comrade. Christ, it was supposed to be green teachers like herself that had that much nauseating enthusiasm. She picks up a stack of thick paperback books and starts passing them around. "The first book is Hawthorn's 'The Scarlet Letter'. You have the rest of the class period to read the prologue. If you don't finish it, make sure that you do before the next class. That is all." She throws the remaining books down and sits on the edge of her desk and begins filing her already perfect nails.

At long last the bell rings, and there's a stampede of everyone trying to be the first one out of the room. Yuffie looks down at her book, still opened to page one, as it had been for the past fifteen minutes. She had thought that perhaps reading along with Rikku and Kairi would make it more interesting, but the two had opened their books and begun talking non-stop. Not that she really thought that it was her place to be criticizing either of them, hell she could talk the ears off of a pot according to her father. She picks her very doodle filled notebook up, sticking it, and the gods forsaken piece of literature under her arm and pauses to look over Juri's hunched shoulders because she was nosy, and enjoyed being that way.

The other girl looks up, black eyes startles, and she scrambles to shove her long bangs out of her eyes. Abstractly Yuffie wonders why her bangs are so much longer than the rest of her close cropped dark hair. "Yeah?"

Yuffie smiles good naturedly. "Class is over! Let's goo before the satan spawns decide that we like them. She blinks as Juri quickly exits out of a web page. "The Inferno?" She tries not to put too much stress on the word, but fails.

The smaller girl sticks the computer into her bag and stands up. "Yes." She turns and walks out of the door, leaving Yuffie wondering how someone wearing beat up jeans, beat up sneakers, a beat up long sleeved shirt, and a beaten up Pi shirt could seem so swishy. She shakes her head and follows, too intent on trying to find someone familiar to follow around when she knocks into something hard.

She goes down with an appropriate sounding _thud_, well, two _thuds_. Could one body thud twice? Her nose hurt, and her eyes were all teary. Crivens. She looks up, and three very tall people loom over her, and one sits across from her, giving the small ninja a distinctly evil look. "Sorry?"

The person bounces back to his or her feet, shaking long ringlets of silvery and purple hair behind well toned shoulders and displaying a silver edged purple vest that reveals pectorals that just had to have been a result of careful magical enhancement or plastic surgery. "Watch where you're going, bitch."

Yuffie blinks in reply, not really in the mood to think of a comeback that could make this older boy's head spin. She chooses the only reasonable way out that she can, dignity be damned, and scrambles around, tugging her few papers up, though one, lodged under a heavy black boot, refuses to budge despite her persuasive tugs. She looks up, neck beginning to crick as she bends it farther back than even she had thought possible. And coming from a girl who could slide into a full split after being awake for about thirty seconds, that was saying quite a lot. "Uh… do you mind please?" She pokes the boot once or twice.

The man looks down at her, "not at all." He shoves a rather wiry lock of blond hair out of his eyes, revealing a mostly healed scar stretching from over his right eye to under his left one. Dangerous looking man.

Yuffie gives the man her most disdainful look, which is hard to do considering she doesn't even come up to his shoulder. "Well, bye then." She turns and almost collides with an even bigger brown man. "'Scuse me."

The man steps to the side politely, with a nod before the man with curly silver hair raps out, "hold her, Rajin." And a hand roughly the side and weight of a brick slams onto her shoulder, sending tingles down to her fingertips. Ow.

The blond man raises an eyebrow at the silvery haired one. "Watch it, Kuja." He snaps, but there's a glitter in his bright eyes, amusement stepping on the toes of anger and malice with all the care of a sergeant.

A girl steps out from behind the blond man, shooting an indiscriminate glare at all three males. "LATE. RAGE." As though agreeing with her, the bell signaling the start of the next set of classes rings, and she kicks the brown man in the shins and drags him via his ear into the English room.

The curly haired man, Kuja keeps his eyes on Yuffie's face for a moment longer than would be considered decent. "I'll remember you." He follows the duo into the classroom, leaving a rather cheesed off Yuffie and the blond man standing alone.

Yuffie places her hands on the hips of her khaki shorts. "Give me my notebook back, please."

The blond man smirks and picks it up, dusting the dusty brown boot marks off the dark green cover and begins handing it to her, whisking it out of sight as soon as her hand brushes the plastic cover and offers her a sardonic grin. "How about… not." He winks at her and saunters into his classroom leaving a rather fuming Yuffie behind.

000

Aerith smiles at the two younger girls sitting across from her in the chaotic cafeteria, sitting down with a tray in front of her. "I'm really, really sorry about this morning." She sprinkles some balsamic vinegar over her lettuce and almond salad. "So how was the class? Did you like the teachers?"

Juri spears a slice of pineapple and studies it critically before popping it into her mouth and chewing slowly, letting Yuffie take the brunt of the brunette's third degree questioning. "Eh." She pushes her nearly empty tray away and pulls her laptop out, and proceeds to ignore everyone else.

Yuffie rolls her eyes at such typical Juri behavior. She personally knew clams that were more relaxed than the computer oriented girl. "It wasn't that bad. Miss Belle's having us read the Scarlet Letter, so it could be better."

Aerith's sunny smile fades infinitesimally. "Oh, why do you say that, Yuffie? The Scarlet Letter is really an amazing book, once you get past the introduction." She takes a sip of water, trying to ignore the empty liter bottle of soda beside the typist. That much soft drink wasn't healthy. A bell rings out a perky melody, signaling the end of the lunch, and the trio takes their trays up to the metal counter, Aerith waving at a tanned blond boy. "Hello Tidus, detention already?"

The boy flushes under a hairnet, and he waggles a scrub brush at the pink clad girl. "You know me too well. I'll have to reform." He snorts and gives Yuffie and Juri a small wave, before turning his sink off and disappearing momentarily. He pops back into view behind a counter later, shaking bleached blond shaggy hair out of the hair net. "So, what've you got next, ladies?" He wraps an arm around Aerith's shoulder.

She grins in return and ducks out from under him. "Behave or I'll tell Cloud."

Tidus makes an ultra-feminine swishing gesture with his hand. "Heaven forbid I try and chat up my cousin's girlfriend. My morals must be slipping." He grins. "Well, I have to be going, my sweet. People do, things to see, a certain mage's cleavage to stare at…" He winks again, and turns to go.

Aerith raises an eyebrow at him. "Don't let Yuna catch you. And take Juri with you." She gives the mentally AWOL teenager towards him. "She has magic. Make sure she gets there, please." Somehow the statement should have not sounded quite so threatening from such a sweet girl.

"Yes ma'am!" Tidus snaps out a highly satirized salute, and seizes a rather perplexed Juri's arm and drags her off to parts unknown.

The two stop suddenly, Juri making a rather sudden contact with Tidus' broad back. She skids back, trying to protect her messenger bag containing her laptop from any imminent danger. She growls something that could have been either "fuck" of "eh".

Tidus whirls around, resting rather heavy hands on her arms. "The Magic classroom is the red door right across from you. There's something I have to take care of for a sec. G'bye." He sprints off, leaving Juri idly wondering what the hell was with the tour guides and their inability to complete an errand, especially one ordered by someone as emphatic as Aerith. She shrugs if off. Not really her problem. Especially if she was actually where she is supposed to be. She shrugs it off and walks to the door pointed out to her. She tries the doorknob, a rather glittery device that contrasts oddly with the red wood. It's locked. Damn. She slumps down, resting her back against the wood and waits. She'd have to hit something if this turns out to be some sort of elaborate prank. She wouldn't put anything past the people here. Some of them probably mugged little old ladies for the fun of it. Either that or they engaged in kinky animal sex during their times off. People are really freaking weird.

A child in a blue coat bumbles down the hallway, walking as though he was used to having feet stuck in front of him and being pushed down on a fairly regular basis. A pointy yellow hat perches on his head, shielding his face from Juri's view. He hums to himself off key, and fishes a key out of his pocket, fitting it into the door and jiggling it around until something clicks. He starts as Juri rolls to her feet, still clutching her messenger bag protectively. "Hi?" His voice is deeper than she had anticipated, the voice of a teenager, not the mousey squeaks of a child, even if he looks like he would be considered lucky to be able to top four feet as an adult, hat included.

She smiles nervously, trying to blow her bangs out of her eyes. Stupid hair, she really should invest in a hair tie or barettes. "Uh… is this Magic?"

The smaller person nods, rather the tip of his hat nods back and forth. "Yep, magic for those with no ability, no skill, or can not follow the rules for using it. Also known as Magic for Imbeciles." Wow. Bitter much?

"Which category do you belong in then, or do you teach the class?"

The boy shakes his head. "None. Magic is really all I can do. So I try to take as many classes as I can." He sighs. "You get tired of having your failures rubbed in your face day and night." A painfully sardonic laugh. "Oh, I'm Vivi." He pushes the door open and ushers her in gently.

Juri smiles sadly. Wow this kid really got shit on. "Juri." She crosses the room and selects a seat in the back of the two rows of desks. Apparently this room didn't see much use. Compared to the other places she had seen, this place was smaller than some of the broom closets. She watches the boy, who begins wandering around the room, and pulls out of laptop, clicking open her music program and pulling headphones over her ears, before pulling up a game of Freecell. This was nice and peaceful.

The peace doesn't last. Of course the peace doesn't last. She hasn't even been at this school for a full twenty-four hours and she could already tell that this place was bursting with future terrorists and mental patients. She supposes that she should be thankful that the disturbance is only a couple of boys slamming into her desk. Black eyes sparking, she looks up, clicking programs closed and shutting the computer down in case she has to bust out her can of Ass Whupping, as her brother had called it once.

Tidus looks up at the girl Aerith had entrusted him with from where he was sprawled on the floor along with his two other cronies in this class. "Glad to see that you made it without me." He drawls, flipping his body off the floor and into a standing position in one smooth motion. The blond man turns to glare rather vindictively at the tormenters of his friends, and himself. "What the fuck was that for, Seifer?"

The same blond man who had taken Yuffie's notebook smirks down at the shorter man, each blong flanked by his group of friends. "Felt like it, Barbie." He smirks as Tidus' fists curl. "The hairnet looked absolutely smashing, by the by. I'm sure Yuna would love to see you in an apron. She seems like she'd go for that sort of fetish wear." He flicks an imaginary piece of dust off his pristine white trench coat. "So does she?"

Tidus turns a very purple color, which clashes horribly with white blond hair, before a tall man built like a wall puts his hand on the blond's shoulder. "Let it go, ya? Not point lowering yourself to that ass' level just sothat he can beat you up with his experience."

A blond, probably only a little taller than Juri herself steps next to him, putting a hand on his fist. "Yeah man. Don't let the bastard get to you. He's just an asshole and all that."

Seifer grins. "Aw, look at all the male bondage. Say Tidus, are you and Chickenwuss always this touchy-feely, or is it just when your girlfriend's not around?"

Both Tidus and Zell stare at each other, before jumping back a foot, much to the amusement of everyone watching. "You are a sick bastard, Almasy." Tidus announces, before wandering off to write grafitti on any particular surface that catches his eye.

Seifer grins at the mens obvious discomfort and tugs a piece of notebook paper out of a green notebook; Juri raising an eyebrow at the name Yuffie Kisaragi doodled on the front. Somehow the blond man didn't look like the dark haired Yuffie to whom the notebook belonged. He tosses the notebook onto a desk and tapes the raggedy paper onto the blackboard, standing back with a satisfied air. A silver haired woman with an eye patch stands beside him, and raises an eyebrow. "BITTER."

A black man joins the two. "Say, that looks like Miss Quistis, ya know?"

The smaller woman kicks his shins ferociously. "RAGE."

The man jumps back, but can't completely avoid the blow, though it doesn't seem to faze him very much. "Aw Fuj, what was that for?"

"STUPID."

Juri wanders up, leaving her computer at her desk, hoping that the farther away from the loonies it was, the safer it would be. She raises an eyebrow at the crude pencil sketch of two women with comically large breasts making love on a desk with an apple on it. Pen had given one woman a black bun with several long braids, and a yellow colored pencil had made the other woman a blond. She shakes her head with disgust at the all American past time of watching girl on girl action.

Walking past, she snags Yuffie's notebook from the man's desk, sticking it into her bag. If the notebook was really the only sort of school supply that Yuffie had brought, she could give it back and tell herself that she had finished with her one good deed for the year thing.

The blond man had seen her though, and he looms over her, green eyes sparking. "What are you doing with my notebook, kid?"

Juri takes a deep breath. She hates confrontations. "I didn't realize your name was Yuffie Kisaragi." She retorts, much to the amusement of just about everyone in the room.

The blond man looks like he's about to say something nasty in return, when the big brown man cuts him off with a grin. "Hey, isn't that the chick that knocked Kuja over?" He laughs a rumbling sound, like a mountain being moved.

The silver haired woman nods. "FUNNY."

Seifer grins, "fucking slut got what he deserved."

Rajin grins and stage whispers to his silver haired friend, "he thinks Yuffie's cute, ya know?"

"RAJIN. BUSIBODY." Kick.

Seifer scowls at his friends, and feels a burning urge to hit something. Preferably something small, clumsy, and not evil. Only one person in the room that fitted that description. He stalks over to the tiny Vivi in a pointy hat who is looking on, amusement flickering in his eyes. "You think this is funny, short shit?"

Vivi looks up, wide yellow eyes going wider. It's not that he is scared of the taller and stronger man, well, he is, but that's really not the point. But really, when your enemy can smell a lie on you, how do your dig yourself out of your own grave? He shrinks away, trying to blend into a poster of all the different types of magic and their various uses. This fails, due to there being very little blue in the poster. Stupid coat. Well, he's in for a beating now.

Juri can see the punch let loose, but she's still halfway across the room, though practically folding time to get there, when a black blur scoots around her and aims a punch at the blur that was Seifer's fist. Holy mother on crackers. She didn't think anyone could move that fast without breaking the sound barrier.

The punch that Seifer had thrown veers slightly off course, clipping the brim of Vivi's hat instead of actually making contact with chibi black mage flesh. Bugger. He looks up, murder, or at the very least maiming and arson in his green eyes to meet disgustingly relaxed blue ones. "What the fuck are you doing, Prepubes?" He snarls, Fujin and Rajin materializing behind him to support their leader in the fight, should he need them.

Squall doesn't back down, only offers the smaller boy a hand up, and pushes him out of the line of fire. "Leave him alone."

"Or what?" The older, taller, and generally stronger man taunts, "you'll tell Ansem on me?" He turns to anyone watching the drama. "I'm absolutely terrified."

"So you should be." A voice like a block of liquid nitrogen in the middle of Midwinter cuts through the impending fight. Necks in the room instantly whip to the direction of that voice, and Juri gets the impression of black leather and black hair before crimson eyes pin everyone still. "Welcome to Magic, Basic. My name is Lulu. Now go to your seats." She points, and nametags seem to flutter down from the ceiling, landing neatly on desks.

Juri picks her bag up, and moves it several seats down to the middle of the back row, the redhead with hair resembling a cone of soft ice cream sitting down on her left, the Tidus setting his frame to her right. Lovely. She may as well be drowning in a sea of testosterone. Well, either that or steroids. Both men look like they could bench press a bus without breaking into a sweat. Most of the others, the 'trouble makers' sit in front, a back covered with a white coat almost entirely obliterating her view of the chalk board.

Lulu begins lecturing about magic, and she honestly does try to listen to the instructor, but ever so often Tidus flicks a staple off a rubber band, sending it whizzing into Seifer's ear. The first several times his aim is off, but the 'wasps' get closer and closer until one finally hits it's mark in the soft flesh of the man's ear.

The effect was immediate and deafening. Seifer, incidentally the man wearing the white trench coat, leaps to his feet with a roar that would send a bull running for it's life, scattering his chair and desk pell-mell. He whirls around in a froth of white canvas, hands reaching out and grabbing the two closest people to serve as his victims, one of which happen to be the innocent Juri, and the guilty Tidus, who still manages to look innocent, despite the truth being contrary.

"I am going to kill you two bastards right now." He smiles, and is about to knock the two of them together with the intent of causing a concussion if not outright brain damage, when he freezes. Literally. Frost gathers all over his clothes, and small drops of perspiration freeze into ice pebbles along his hairline. His lips blue, and suddenly he's the newest form of ice cube.

Of course, this does absolutely nothing for Juri, now held several inches off the ground by a chunk of ice, little splinters of frost trying to creep off the man and onto her clothes.

"That is a blizzard spell." Lulu informs the spectators, and strides over amid a series of clinks from her skirt of belts. With a sharp tug, Juri and Tidus are free from their captor, and scarlet eyes glare at the two of them. "I will not tolerate any sort of juvenile delinquency in my classroom." Her voice is honey laced with cyanide. "Magic is about knowing when to use power and when to refrain, and unless you learn this… you will have hell to pay in here." She smiles and twitches a finger at the frozen Seifer, ice melting immediately and soaking him through and through. "Sit down, Mr. Almasy and pay attention." She's about to resume her lesson when a big round jaguar head shoves the classroom door open, revealing a heavily tattooed feline quadruped, who stares around the room with annoyed eyes.

"Is there a problem, Miss Lulu?" The voice doesn't seem to come from the animal's mouth, but there's no doubt in anyone's mind that he spoke it.

Lulu smiles at the head of the college's security. "None what so ever, Nanaki."

If Nanaki had eyebrows, he would have raised one at the buxom professor. "But there was magic usage, Lulu."

Lulu does raise an eyebrow in response. "Disipline, Nanaki. Thank you for checking in." She watches the big cat walk out, his flame tipped tail shutting the door behind him with a click.

The class continues without any more incidents, but you could have ladled the tension in the air over potatoes and used it as gravy. Lulu ignores the pornographic drawing of herself, writing the homework assignment in elegant script over it, and tears it neatly off the chalkboard, dropping it unhurt onto Seifer's desk. "I hope you enjoy jerking off to that, Mr. Almasy, because it will be a cold day in hell before Quistis Trepe gives you the time of day, much less anything else."

Juri hurries out of the classroom in time to see Tidus fleeing for his life with his friends, and she attempts to follow him, but ends up slammed into a wall by the very last person she wanted to see after overhearing Lulu's comments.

Seifer Almasy's breath is warm and vaguely toxic against her cheek, and he's looking down at her, as though she was an ant, who he was about to urinate on and drown. "Think you're funny, bitch?" He asks softly, shielding her tiny frame from anyone who might be passing by, namely Squall.

Juri doesn't answer, trying her damnest to catch Squall's attention, but fails rather miserably. "No." She replies, meeting his eyes, her own black ones flinty. "I just think you're stupid." _Way to go Juri, master of stating facts that will kill her._

Seifer smirks, and slams her against the wall again, her head knocking back slightly. "Now is that any way to treat a possible friend?" He asks good naturedly, hands keeping the front of her shirt in an iron grip. "I can be a good friend, you know."

Juri doesn't scowl, fingers fumbling around in her pocket for a switchblade. Wait. What the hell was she thinking? Apparently, nothing, as her fist sails out, blade snapping free and scoring across Seifer's hand with the effectiveness of a Bite Bug. Shit.

Seifer stares at her, with less pain or shock, and more amusement than she would have preferred. "So the bug bites, does it?" He asks, managing to pin her in place with one hand, while watching a dribble of blood escape from his hand and disappear into the sleeve of his coat. "Catch you later, ugly." He drops her and walks away, humming to himself.

A shadow falls over her, and she looks into the big blue face of the security guard from English this morning. "Come with Khimari." The blue man growls, not giving her a chance to run, tugging her to her feet and dragging her to a nice room several floors of stairs away.

Juri is pushed into a chair, and the Khimari stares across a desk at her, mammoth blue hands folded in front of him. "Khimari want know why there is blood on your knife."

Juri shrugs, tossing her knife onto the desk without being asked. "Was defending myself."

The big cat man blinks slowly, picking the stained weapon up and sniffing it gently, nose trembling as his large brain analyzes and sorts information away for further perusal. "Seifer Almasy?"

"Yeah."

"Khimari no surprised." The man shrugs, and tosses the knife into a corner. "No more fights, or Khimari tell Ansem." He nods at the door, and Juri leaves will all due haste.

She's in a foul mood, to say the least, when Aerith finds her later, generally kicking walls and swearing softly to herself inside their dorm, having been able to negotiate the lock herself. Yuffie was with Kairi and Rikku, the trio quickly becoming inseparable friends, all eating far too much, talking far too fast, and generally having a grand old time, regardless of Aerith's presence. She had been intending to go to her room to grab an extra book for her next class, and had found Juri in her current state of anger.

"Something wong?"

"No." Mutter curse kick.

"It's alright, Juri. You can tell me."

"People are bastards." Curse, curse, kick, more curses.

Aerith smiles sympathetically. "It's alright, sweetie. I'm sure the homesickness will go away."

A disbelieving look. "Whatever." More kicking, but the cursing is softer.

A girlish laugh. "Lets go get you something to sweeten that temper of yours."

"Patronizing bitch."

"Absolutely."

The two girls walk out of the room, one privately amused for all the wrong reasons, the other absolutely livid at a certain gunblade wielding brunet. Fucking bastard.

000

Shit that was long. Sorry if it was too long/fast/whatever. I swear that the outline was only two pages, and I couldn't really cut it off before this. I don't want to only write one class per chapter, if that was the case I'd never finish this thing. Thanks for your patience, and all my reviewers!


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